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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain

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Course Overview

Why is it so hard to lose weight, stop smoking, or establish healthy habits? Why do couples argue about the same issues over and over? Why do so many people lie awake at night, stricken with worry and anxiety? Why is it so difficult to come to terms with a loved one’s death, even if it’s after a long illness?

The answers to these questions—and the path to lasting change in your life—lie in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), a well-tested collection of practical techniques for managing moods and modifying undesirable behaviors through self-awareness, critical analysis, and taking steps toward gradual, goal-oriented change.

CBT illuminates the links between thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and physical health and uses those connections to develop concrete plans for self-improvement. Built on a solid foundation of neurological and behavioral research, CBT is not simply about treating mental illness. It is an approach almost anyone can use for promoting greater mental health and improving quality of life.

In the 24 engaging half-hour lectures of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain, you’ll build a robust and effective self-improvement toolkit with the expert guidance of Professor Jason M. Satterfield of the University of California, San Francisco. You will explore CBT’s roots in Socratic and stoic philosophy, build a toolkit of CBT techniques, and review the latest research about its outcomes. Additionally, this intriguing and practical course allows you to take on the roles of medical student, physician, psychologist, and patient.

As a special feature of this course, you’ll observe CBT session scenarios between Professor Satterfield and three “patients”:

Maria, 70, is a caretaker for her terminally ill husband. She struggles with depression, anxiety, insomnia, and coming to terms with his death.

Carol, 30, is so anxious in everyday social situations that she has trouble developing friendships.

Michael, 50, has a temper that can flare up at a moment’s notice. He wishes he could keep his anger under control.

After completing this course, you will be armed with myriad resources to examine your own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and to set yourself on the path to a better life, all without leaving the comfort of your own home.

The Science of Lasting Change

Everyone has something about their life that they would like to improve. Learning how to assess your situation and select an appropriate tool for change is a vital skill. Cognitive behavioral therapy engages a patient in a very scientific and logical approach to creating lasting change. It is:

Collaborative and transparent: The therapist and patient work together as equal partners throughout the treatment process.

Empirical: Each session includes homework, such as jotting down notes about behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in a journal. The next steps in the process are based on the evidence of the previous week’s “experiments.”

Time-limited: The CBT process is designed for 12-24 sessions. Once a patient understands the process, it becomes easier for them to be their own CBT therapist.

Skills-focused: CBT teaches the patient skills to practice in the real world, such as social experiments and somatic quieting techniques.

Symptom-focused: While CBT was developed to treat depression, it is also effective for anger, anxiety, chronic pain, insomnia, and developing healthier habits.

Present-focused: Rather than the bottom-up approach of traditional psychotherapy, CBT works from the top down, starting with the patient’s daily life.

A core assumption behind CBT is that human beings, by nature, aren't particularly rational. In fact, we aren't even mostly rational. We take all sorts of shortcuts in terms of how we think, how we process, and how we make decisions. CBT helps you become aware of your daily thoughts, categorize them as “helpful” or “hurtful” (instead of true or false), and decide how to act on them.

Engineer Your Own Happiness

Throughout the course, you’ll explore issues that cause people to seek out therapy. In some cases, you’ll get to watch Dr. Satterfield working with a patient, and in others, you’ll be delving into the research to see what causes these issues and how CBT helps to resolve them.

Stress: Humans are unique in that we can stress ourselves out with hypothetical events, things that never happen or might never happen. An individual's appraisals may be out of sync with reality, or out of touch with their actual coping skills. CBT helps to uncover those thoughts and to begin restructuring them.

Depression: People who are feeling depressed often engage in maladaptive behaviors, which exacerbate their depressed feelings. For example, in one of the three depressive spirals, a depressed person may engage in less social activity, which makes them more depressed, thus causing them to pull away even more. CBT helps patients reverse the spiral and participate more fully in their lives.

Anger: Have you ever had a fight with someone that took place wholly in your mind? The journaling aspect of CBT brings awareness to these hostile fantasies, and the somatic quieting techniques you learn can help you avoid letting your emotions get away from you.

CBT can help you address a variety of common concerns. Some of these issues fall under the traditional rubric of mental health, such as anxiety, depression, and trauma. Others are stressors in that occur in everyone’s life, from everyday challenges like conflicts at work to potentially life-changing events like the loss of a loved one. Even with medical issues, such as insomnia, weight management, and chronic pain, CBT can be a powerful part of better understanding the problem and enhancing the healing process. Unlike other forms of psychotherapy, CBT places the power in the hands of the patient, who learns and practices an explicit skillset that lasts long after therapy might end.

Self-Help for Critical Thinkers

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a thoroughly enjoyable course for the critical thinker who would like to improve their quality of life. Professor Satterfield’s presentation is warm and engaging as he deftly blends history, science, inspirational stories, and case studies in each lecture.

As you progress through the course, you will:

gain a comprehensive understanding of the complex relationship between cognitions, emotions, and behavior;

see how a very empirical process can be applied to very emotional situations;

find success through analyzing situations in which you failed to achieve your goals;

ramp up your positive emotions and moderate the negative ones; and

understand the full scope of treatment options available.

With the tools in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and the desire to improve your situation, you can create lasting change in your life simply with the power of your own mind.

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24 lectures

| Average 31 minutes each

1

Cognitive Behavioral Foundations

Begin by meeting Dr. Satterfield's patients - Carol, Michael, and Maria - each with something in their lives that could be helped with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). You will follow these patients throughout the course as you learn the basics of CBT, including how you can train your brain to improve motivation, management of emotions, and interpersonal skills. x

2

Quantified Self-Assessment for Therapy

Trace the roots of CBT and see how it upends the typical psychoanalysis process, focusing on daily events and emotions instead of past history. Watch as Dr. Satterfield performs an initial assessment of three new patients, helps them set SMART goals, and begins to collect data about their thoughts, emotions, and actions. x

3

Setting Therapeutic Goals

A fascinating aspect of CBT is the collaborative journey the therapist and patient take to create the patient's case formulation, a living document that serves as a basis for an individual treatment plan and guides the therapy process. Watch as the doctor helps Michael unpack his anger to understand why certain situations make him furious. x

4

Third-Wave Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Now that you are familiar with the basics of CBT, explore the third wave, which focuses on the process of cognition rather than its content. It's been described as Buddhist meditation meets CBT, and the research shows some surprising results! x

5

Stress and Coping

Alleviate stress by learning how to quiet the two primary physiological stress pathways: one secretes the stress hormone called cortisol, and the other secretes epinephrine or adrenaline (often called the fight or flight response). See how CBT helps you examine your preferred coping styles to determine whether or not you're selecting the best adaptive strategies for you. x

6

Anxiety and Fear

Contrast the emotions of anxiety and fear, and consider how each can feed the other. Use the SUDS hierarchy to perform a thorough analysis of situations that induce these feelings, then see how behavioral experiments can systematically desensitize you to the things you once feared or avoided. x

7

Treating Depression

Identify the nine hallmark symptoms of depression, then use the CBT triangle to describe the three downward spirals that contribute to a depressive episode. Observe as Dr. Satterfield walks Maria through tools to help her alleviate her depression, and learn how you can apply these same techniques to lift your mood. x

8

Anger and Rage

Delve into the surprising root of many anger issues and see how CBT works to decrease hostile fantasies," or the thoughts you have when a person or situation triggers your anger. Add simple exercises to your life that will help you recognize triggers and defuse them before they become full-blown rage." x

9

Advanced Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Progress from basic cognitive restructuring to an in-depth look at a tool that helps build awareness of the thoughts and emotions you have in a particular situation. See how the collaborative problem solving in CBT creates flexibility and the creativity to find something that works for each individual person, given his or her life circumstances. x

10

Positive Psychology

Although CBT was developed for the treatment of psychopathology and negative mood states, it has more recently been used as a way to encourage or induce positive emotion. Explore recent scientific studies about happiness, and learn which exercises are most effective for cultivating improved mood. x

11

Healing Traumatic Injuries

Define the various types of trauma that can affect people - from combat veterans suffering from PTSD to victims of random violence - and learn how CBT can be used to treat these patients with great success. See how the tools used in CBT sessions help to unstick the brain and begin the process of repairing damage. x

12

Forgiveness and Letting Go

Forgiveness - and its associated health benefits - begins with a cognitive decision and can be promoted with both cognitive and behavioral strategies. Delve into the fascinating scientific research on forgiveness, identify maladaptive strategies that are holding you back, and create an A.C.T.I.O.N. plan. x

13

Digging Deep and Finding Meaning

Move beyond searching for explanations for why painful events happened, instead turning your thoughts to what those events mean in your broader perspective and how your reactions can be intentionally shaped using CBT. See how CBT can provide tools to support positive shifts in perspective and help you see the bigger picture. x

14

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Medicine

Recently, there has been growing acceptance of CBT as part of the treatment for medical illnesses, from diabetes to cardiovascular disease to cancer. Discover the pivotal role that cognitions and emotions can play in empowering patients and helping them manage their physical maladies. x

15

Staying on the Wagon

Whether you want to lose weight, quit smoking, or exercise more, learn the secrets to creating habits that stick. Identify and define core concepts, such as self-control, self-discipline, motivation, and willpower, and see how each of these can be affected by the CBT skills you've learned in previous lectures. x

16

Thinking Healthy: Weight and Nutrition

Yo-yo no more: Patients who used CBT to manage their relationship with food and exercise showed decreased weight, decreased body mass index, decreased waist circumference, and improved eating habits. Use the core behavior change principles from previous lectures and apply them to healthy eating and exercise habits. x

17

Behavioral Therapy for Chemical Addictions

Review the basics of substance use disorders - alcohol, prescription drugs, and illegal drugs - and what second- or third-wave CBT therapies can offer people who suffer with addiction. Add community reinforcement approach (CRA) to your CBT toolkit and see how it can be more successful than 12-step recovery programs. x

18

Getting a Good Night's Sleep

Fewer than half of Americans say they get a good night's sleep on most nights. Observe as Dr. Satterfield works with Maria to assess her quality and quantity of sleep. Apply the techniques of CBTI (the "I" is for insomnia) to fall asleep faster and wake more rested. x

19

Mastering Chronic Pain

Both cognitive and behavioral factors influence the experience of pain and the intensity of suffering. Learn how psychological factors can alter the experience of pain, look at mind-body factors that can alleviate or exacerbate chronic pain, and take out the CBT toolbox to see how it can be applied to physical, rather than emotional, hurt. x

20

Building and Deepening Relationships

Relationships are vital to our health and happiness. Explore the intricate world of human relationships, study the unwritten rules of social interactions, and discover how CBT can help you think through difficult situations without letting your emotions get the best of you. x

21

Constructive Conflict and Fighting Fair

Go beyond the one-on-one therapist-patient scenario and look at CBT's approach to couples' therapy, focusing on communication, conflict, empathy, respect, and intimacy. Meet Michael's wife as she joins her husband in Dr. Satterfield's office to talk about Michael's anger and their relationship. x

22

Thriving at Work through Behavioral Health

Problems at work are more strongly associated with health complaints than any other life stressors. Examine best-selling books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and How to Win Friends and Influence People and see where they line up neatly with CBT - and where CBT offers a better way to achieve success and happiness in the workplace. x

23

Developing Emotional Flexibility

Peer into the lives of people who have thrived in the face of adversity - why do some people flower while others wilt? The keys to flourishing are flexibility and resilience. Complete your CBT toolkit with a list of ten ways that you can develop and sustain personal resilience. x

24

Finding the Best Help

Round out the course with a look at Carol, Maria, and Michael's progress. Then, Dr. Satterfield gives you his personal recommendations for finding a quality therapist, making the most of your sessions, evaluating your progress, and knowing when to end your therapy sessions. x

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Download 24 video lectures to your computer or mobile app

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24 lectures on 4 DVDs

224-page printed course guidebook

Downloadable PDF of the course guidebook

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Your professor

About Your Professor

Jason M. Satterfield, Ph.D.

University of California, San Francisco

Professor Jason M. Satterfield is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Director of Behavioral Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He earned his B.S. in Brain Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently directs the...

Reviews

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain is rated
4.2 out of
5 by
196.

Rated 4 out of
5 by
connoisseuse from
Useful Tools and ReferencesThe course covered a lot of material and offered helpful tools: resources, workbooks, diary and analysis formats. The videos of the practitioner dealing with patients made me feel a little voyeuristic but served a useful purpose. I thought highly enough of the course that I bought an extra copy and gave it to a friend of mine who suffered a recent trauma, thinking it would help her help herself.

Date published: 2019-09-10

Rated 1 out of
5 by
AWMP from
Bought Cognitive Behavioral Therapy-Techniques for Retraining Your Brain and it is almost identical to the other course Boostiing Your Emotional Intelligence. I am not satisfied with it.

Date published: 2019-09-03

Rated 5 out of
5 by
mrsbear1024 from
Great instructor, useful informationI am in the process of watching the lessons and am enjoying them greatly. Despite having researched the topic extensively and being very knowledgeable, Dr. Satterfield keeps his lectures on a level where an ordinary person can understand the information and recognize the credibility of the claims behind CBT. He regularly refers to sites where we can find the various diagnostic tools he describes and shows videos of actual therapy sessions to show how the process works. I can enthusiastically recommend this series to anyone interested in how people can get past personal issues that are keeping them from enjoying life.

Date published: 2019-09-02

Rated 5 out of
5 by
KB201 from
Informative great courseI have been working the lessons in this course ,for past two months, which are very informative and easy to follow with practical examples given by each lecture. Leaning a lot useful lessons ; recommend this course very much

Date published: 2019-08-24

Rated 5 out of
5 by
ERS3 from
CBT does workI bought this course and started looking into it as soon as it arrived. We sit down and watch it as a family and review the material presented. Satterfield does an awesome job in presenting the information.

Date published: 2019-08-13

Rated 5 out of
5 by
JBabq from
Very ComprehensiveThis course is excellent for mental health practitioners. I am a counselor who has been away from the field for awhile and this course has provided me with a comprehensive review of CBT....some things I needed a refresher and other information that was brand-new to me. Dr. Satterfield is an excellent presenter and practitioner. The videos are full of great information, demonstrations, and are very professionally produced. Well done!

Date published: 2019-08-07

Rated 5 out of
5 by
BettyBoop from
Excellent Guidance for Working the ProgramMy daughter went to an institute for a few weeks that uses Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to treat anxiety and OCD. Her psychologist had recommended the program. The program is quite expensive and when her health insurance changed, her treatment was no longer covered.
I am a retired social worker, so I had learned as much as I could about the treatment and felt it could work for her. We were both disappointed that she could no longer afford to continue. I found this course and downloaded to see if we could use it to help her. I was fortunate that it was on sale at the time.
We haven't been through the whole course, but she and I have found the professor, the pace of the lectures and the case studies to be realistic. We are not going through all the lectures because she had already been through the assessment and a few other portions.
I'm not sure if a person could use the course this for self-treatment without outside discussion or guidance. Maybe - maybe not (a take-away she got from her treatment - in responding to stimuli). I think it could be used in a group setting, pausing frequently to discuss the concepts.
I think it's important to have a video version to see expressions and illustrations. I'm not sure the audio would be sufficient.

Date published: 2019-06-28

Rated 5 out of
5 by
aw11 from
The most useful self-help guide I've ever foundThis course has helped me bring healthier patterns into my life. I'm not clinically mentally ill, but I feel depressed, angry, and anxious more than I would like to. This course was a good mix of background theory and practical tips on managing my emotions. It wouldn't take the place of therapy if I needed it, but I'm finding it to be the most useful self-help guide I've ever had. Certainly at the sale price I would recommend it to anyone. Treat yourself, grab a journal or a blank screen, and get ready to "roll your sleeves up and do the work" as Prof Satterfield says. As a guide, he radiates empathy. With the videos, I felt safe enough to tackle some tough subjects by myself....and, I think, make some progress! I'm grateful for this course.